Science Jrnl AAAS bak
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:{:{university of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann was awarded more than $1 million in a lawsuit against bloggers who accused him of scientific misconduct in inflammatory terms, likening his treatment of data to what a noted child molester did to children. The verdict suggests that there are limits to which scientists working on politically sensitive topics can be falsely attacked.}:
But the case also says something profound about the difference between matters of opinion and scientific interpretations that can be worked out through normal academic processes. Although Mann has expressed strong—and even intemperate—emotions and words in political discourse, the finding of the District of Columbia Superior Court boiled down to the fact that it is not an opinion that determines when scientific misconduct occurs but rather, misconduct can be established using known processes.}:
When Mann published his famous “hockey stick paper” in Nature in 1998, he began receiving attacks because the paper reported a sharp and alarming increase in global temperature after the Industrial Revolution. Numerous reviews of the paper’s findings were subsequently conducted by the National Science Foundation, Pennsylvania State University (where Mann was at the time), and the National Academy of Sciences. Although a correction was added to the paper to clarify a data matter, the evaluations all concluded that the paper stood. The jury therefore found that accusing Mann of fraud without sufficient evidence was defamatory—the bloggers’ allegation that Mann committed scientific misconduct was false. “It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize scientific findings,” said legal scholar Michael Gerrard, “but this verdict is a strong signal that individual scientists shouldn’t be accused of serious misconduct without strong evidence.” Further, the jury concluded that the bloggers’ statements were written with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.”
Mann told me that he’s aware that he is passionately outspoken but said the hockey stick paper evoked relentless berating and condemnation. It’s perfectly human to react when attacked. Mann noted that former Editor-in-Chief of Science Donald Kennedy—who wrote fiery editorials about climate change—helped him to understand that the denunciations were about something bigger than himself. Kennedy “gave me the philosophical outlook to persevere,” he said. Mann lamented, “I would hate to think that young scientists would have to make a choice to withstand attack if they want to study politically contentious topics.” He also sees assaults on science as advancing the conservatives’ agenda. “They want to make doing science in these areas so toxic that young people won’t want to go into it,” he said.
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The hockey stick graph stands as published because the data were peer-reviewed and addressed questions from experts. Accusations of misconduct were addressed by running established processes outlined by federal agencies, journals, and universities. The paper has not been retracted, and calling it fraud thus met the standards for defamation. A lesson of the verdict is that despite its flaws, the process for vetting, publishing, and curating scientific findings in the literature is still the best game in town. Although some free speech advocates warn that the verdict will have a chilling effect on the criticism of scientific findings, perhaps the verdict can be viewed more optimistically as appropriately directing matters of opinion to blogs and opinion columns while matters of scientific disagreement are handled in the literature of scientific record.
thugswarm? led to ban in sev countries of course no update on actual award
Sarath Gunatilake & Channa Jayasumana
sci prevails
- the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has formally named Sri Lankan scientists Channa Jayasumana and Sarath Gunatilake the recipients of its 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility.
- The pair had been named the recipients in February for their work linking glyphosate, the main chemical in the weed killer Roundup, to chronic kidney disease, but the decision was suspended before the award ceremony over concerns raised by other scientists.
- Jayasumana said at the time he suspected there had been pressure from the agrochemical lobby to undermine their research.
- He told Mongabay that the lengthy peer review ordered by the AAAS following the suspension had vindicated his and Gunatilake’s work and showed that “science has prevailed.”
COLOMBO — Science prevailing over politics: That’s how a researcher who was snubbed for a high-profile award earlier this year has characterized the decision to finally recognize his achievements in highlighting a deadly public health problem in rural Sri Lanka.
Channa Jayasumana and Sarath Gunatilake were to have been conferred the 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in February. But two days after it announced them as the award recipients, the AAAS suspended its decision, citing concerns raised by other scientists about the pair’s work linking the use of a popular weed killer to chronic kidney disease.
At the time, the AAAS said it would address those concerns through a peer review and subsequently evaluate the award status.
That lengthy process has now concluded, Jayasumana told Mongabay on Nov. 15, and has vindicated him and Gunatilake, who are now formally listed on the AAAS website as the recipients of the 2019 award.
Jayasumana said the AAAS had written to him informing him of the review committee’s findings and “considered us suitable to be justly recognized.” He and Gunatilake have long made the case that the chemical glyphosate, best known as the main ingredient in the widely used herbicide Roundup, plays a key role in transporting heavy metals to the kidneys of those drinking contaminated water, leading to high rates of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in farming communities.
At the time of the snub, Jayasumana told Mongabay he suspected that the agrochemical lobby had “negatively influence[d] the emerging scientific evidence linking one of Sri Lanka’s worst public health problems to the agrochemical industry.”
This latest reversal, he said, showed that the research was sound.
“Science has prevailed,” Jayasumana said. “That’s why, after certain groups opposed our selection and undermined our professional work, the research work has been upheld as credible.”
He added the pair might only be presented with the award next year, but that what mattered was the vote of confidence from their fellow scientists.
“It’s important to us because we highlighted a public health issue of immense importance to Sri Lanka, and that has been recognized by AAAS as deserving the scientific freedom and responsibility award,” Jayasumana said.
On its website, the AAAS said, “The 2019 award was given to Sarath Gunatilake and Channa Jayasumana who investigated a possible connection between glyphosate and chronic kidney disease under challenging circumstances.”
The language is more cautious that in its initial announcement on Feb. 4 (now inaccessible but archived elsewhere), where the AAAS referred to the Sri Lankan scientists as “public health researchers who battled powerful corporate interests to uncover the deadly effects of industrial herbicides.”
The award is handed out annually to individuals and organizations “whose exemplary actions have demonstrated scientific freedom and/or responsibility in challenging circumstances,” and comes with a $5,000 prize.
twt
recipients of the AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom & Responsibility: Drs. Sarath Gunatilake & Channa Jayasumana who battled corporate interests while determining the cause of a kidney disease epidemic that claimed tens of thousands of lives. https://fcld.ly/hfs19n1
Two public health researchers who battled powerful corporate interests to uncover the deadly effects of industrial herbicides, solving a medical mystery and protecting the health of farming communities across the world, will receive the 2019 Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Drs. Sarath Gunatilake and Channa Jayasumana faced death threats and claims of research misconduct while working to determine the cause of a kidney disease epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in their home country of Sri Lanka and around the world. Ultimately, their advocacy led to the culprit, an herbicide called glyphosate, being banned in several affected countries.
"To right a wrong when significant financial interests are at stake and the power imbalance between industry and individual is at play takes the unique combination of scientific rigor, professional persistence and acceptance of personal risk demonstrated by the two scientists recognized by this year's award," says Jessica Wyndham, director of the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program at AAAS.
Beginning around 1994, rice farmers in Sri Lanka's North Central Province began falling ill with Chronic Kidney Disease. The epidemic was unique in that those succumbing to the disease were relatively young and did not suffer from ailments associated with CKD, such as diabetes and hypertension. In 2011, the country's Ministry of Health invited Gunatilake, a physician and researcher at California State University, Long Beach to investigate the cause of the disease.
At the time, Jayasumana, also a physician, was struggling to find funding to research the CKD epidemic for his doctoral degree at Rajarata University, in North Central Province. He decided to join California State University, Long Beach as a visiting scholar under Gunatilake's supervision, bringing with him samples of urine, drinking water and rice. Gunatilake and Jayasumana found that glyphosate, marketed mostly by Monsanto as Roundup, was transporting arsenic, cadmium and other heavy metals to the kidneys of those drinking contaminated water, causing CKD.
In 2014, they published their results in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Because similar epidemics were occurring in Central America, North Africa and Southeast Asia, the study earned worldwide attention. To date, the paper has received 23,000 downloads and 64 citations.
Jeopardizing the profits of glyphosate distributors, subsidiaries and importers, however, did not come without consequences. Gunatilake and Jayasumana received death threats, and twelve scientists who had obtained industry-funded grants filed a research misconduct complaint against Gunatilake. Eventually, he was exonerated, after a California State University, Long Beach scientific investigation panel dismissed the complaint.
Thanks to pressure applied by a massive public health campaign led by Gunatilake, the Sri Lankan president created the National Project for Prevention of Kidney Diseases, naming Jayasumana as director. In 2015, Sri Lanka became the first of many countries to ban the import of glyphosate. Three years later, Sri Lanka lifted the import ban, but continued to restrict the use of glyphosate on tea and rubber plantations.
In the past few years, Gunatilake has convened multi-disciplinary international conferences to discuss the dangers of glyphosate and raised more than $20,000 to help the families of victims. CKD has claimed the lives of at least 25,000 Sri Lankans and 20,000 Central Americans.
"What started as a bold effort to provide a voice for the impoverished, powerless rice paddy farmers in Sri Lanka has now blossomed into a worldwide environmental movement through research, advocacy, networking and collaboration," wrote public health professional Hanan Obeidi in the award nomination letter.
The AAAS Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award was established in 1980. It honors scientists, engineers or organizations whose exemplary actions have demonstrated scientific freedom and responsibility in challenging circumstances. Achievements that the award recognizes include acting to protect the public's health, safety or welfare; focusing public attention on important issues related to scientific research, education and public policy; and establishing important new precedents in carrying out the social responsibilities of scientists or in defending the professional freedom of scientists and engineers. The award consists of a $5,000 prize and a commemorative plaque.
The awardees will receive the prize during the 185th AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., onFeb. 15, 2019.
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About the American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science, as well as Science Translational Medicine; Science Signaling; a digital, open-access journal, Science Advances; Science Immunology; and Science Robotics. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world. The nonprofit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, public engagement and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
For more information on AAAS awards, see http://www.aaas.org/awards.
AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, dedicated to "Advancing science; Serving society."
acsh attacks alex b
the AAAS, which stands for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is one of the foremost pro-science organizations in the world. Not only does it advocate for good science and science policy, it publishes the prestigious journal Science, read by millions of scientists around the world.
Unfortunately, AAAS has gotten a bit weird in recent months.
A warning flag popped up in June 2018 when the general news arm of Science republished an article from an environmental activist website which repeated some dubious claims about "chemicals." At the time, we warned that this "very strange editorial decision... could potentially harm its reputation."
Indeed. Now, they've really stepped in it.
AAAS Runs Dishonest Glyphosate Story, Then Deletes It
Yesterday, AAAS issued a press release (since deleted, but forever available) about how the organization gave the2019 "AAAS Scientific Freedom & Responsibility Award"to two researchers "who battled powerful corporate interests to uncover the deadly effects of industrial herbicides" that caused "a kidney disease epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in their home country of Sri Lanka and around the world."
Wow. That's quite the conspiracy they uncovered. Powerful corporate interests and tens of thousands of dead bodies. What was the cause of all that?
According to AAAS, glyphosate.*
What's the evidence for that extraordinary claim? Well, there isn't any. As Dr. Kevin Folta explains for the Genetic Literacy Project, it's a testable yet unproven hypothesis based on the work of the two researchers whom the AAAS is honoring. But here's the rub: Their research, which is based in Sri Lanka, is confounded by the fact that heavy metal contamination is rampant throughout the country. And there is evidence linking cadmium exposure to chronic kidney disease.
Dr. Folta rightly concludes, "While the authors are appropriately conservative in their conclusions, the AAAS website seems to be pretty certain, especially about the 'lethal' herbicide."
Apparently, Dr. Folta's article had an impact. AAAS deleted the press release. It's unclear if the organization still plans to give an award to the two researchers.
If AAAS Becomes Political, Science in America Will Suffer
There's really no nice way to put this. The AAAS has severely damaged its own reputation. This was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. What on Earth were they thinking?
We can only speculate, but it's difficult to avoid wondering if the organization's relatively new CEO has something to do with it. In 2015, AAAS named Rush Holt, a PhD physicist, as its head. That part of his résumé is impeccable and beyond reproach, but this part is not: Dr. Holt is a former Congressman, which means he was (is?) an active player in partisan politics. Just as a matter of public perception, AAAS's choice of Dr. Holt as its CEO was probably a mistake.
The best way to destroy science is to put a politician in charge of it. Let's hope that's not what happens at AAAS, because if it does, science will suffer in America and around the world.
*Note: It is worth pointing out that AAAS's flagship journal, Science, has published articles in favor of glyphosate (for example, this one), making this entire saga even weirder.
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Henry I. Miller,M.D. • 3 years ago
Scientific organizations and journals have often demonstrated political correctness or Social Justice Warrior syndrome, especially with respect to chemicals and genetic engineering. See, for example, https://www.researchgate.ne....
(Note that the journal Science was one of the offenders, as long ago as 2000.)
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cragin
Glad to see (from mem_sommerville's comment) that AAAS is "reassessing". I think Berezow is wrong here though to accuse the organization as a whole or its CEO of "dishonesty". Award decisions are based in part on outside nominations, apparently with input from two advisory committees: the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility and the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists. The membership of both committees appears to me to be rather heavy on lawyers, "soft" scientists and philosophers of science. Perhaps they just got in a little over their heads scientifically and made a bad decision. There's no crime in that, and it's much to their credit that they were willing to reconsider.
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aaas sci mag
climate change denialist given top role at major U.S. science agency
By Scott Waldman, E&E NewsSep. 14, 2020 ,
:{:{Originally published by E&E News:(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}::(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:
A controversial researcher who rejects climate science was hired by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a senior position, in a move suggesting the Trump administration is asserting growing influence over the study of rising temperatures.
David Legates, a geography professor at the University of Delaware, has a long history of questioning fundamental climate science and has suggested that an outcome of burning fossil fuels would be a more habitable planet for humans.
He was hired as deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for observation and prediction, according to a report by NPR.
The move marks an escalation within the Trump administration to undermine the agency's ability to warn the public of climate risks, observers said.
Legates has spent his career denying consensus climate science while elevating the work of fringe researchers and industry-funded scientists. He has claimed that addressing climate change would do more harm than good, and he has said pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would benefit humanity.
When testifying before the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee last year, Legatesblamed natural variations for the unprecedented level of warming that scientists say is caused by the release of carbon dioxide from human activity.
"Climate has always changed, and weather is always variable, due to complex, powerful natural forces," Legates said. "No efforts to stabilize the climate can possibly be successful."
Legates has also said that teaching children about climate change was an effort "to satisfy the climate change fearmongering agenda that pervades our society today."
The hiring of Legates comes as wildfires are burning uncontrollably in the West after a period of intensely hot temperatures that many scientists link to climate change. It also comes amid a highly active hurricane season that NOAA research suggests could be a sign of strengthening storms.
Legates' appointment points to the direction the Trump administration will take on climate science if the president is re-elected in November, said Myron Ebell, the former head of President Trump's EPA transition team and the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
It shows that Trump wants to do more than roll back climate policy by actively trying to reshape climate science. Legates is a critic of climate modeling used to predict future conditions. Ebell said Legates could play a significant role in shaping the next National Climate Assessment.
NOAA and NASA are among the world's premier science agencies, and the data collected by their satellites and other equipment has informed climate research around the world."It's a very good sign that after sitting on their hands for three-and-a-half years, the administration is finally going to inject some science into official climate science," Ebell said. "This is the kind of thing we have been pushing for since before Trump was elected, to get real science into the assessment, instead of junk science, which NASA and NOAA have been doing for years."
NASA peer-reviewed research has shown that climate models have largely been accurate in predicting future conditions. The National Climate Assessment, an influential report required by Congress that's released every four years, has identified the unique ways climate change is affecting regions across the country. It has been used in local emergency preparedness, in infrastructure planning, and for development in communities across the country.
The National Climate Assessment is a comprehensive summary of the peer-reviewed science on how climate is changing and is the work of hundreds of scientists and authors around the world, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and one of the report's lead authors. She said attempts to skew the report away from consensus science could harm people.
"Any attempt to censor, skew or limit the information it presents will hamstring the ability of federal and state agencies to make decisions based on sound science and harm every citizen of this country who relies on their government to provide an accurate assessment of the increasingly dangerous risks they face from a changing climate," she said.
Legates was appointed the Delaware state climatologist in 2005 but was later asked to step down by officials with the University of Delaware and was told in 2007 by then-Governor Ruth Ann Minner (D) to stop using the title.
Even as Trump rejects climate change by calling it a hoax and directing his administration to roll back emissions regulations, the climate work at NOAA and NASA has generally been untouched.
Legates is expected to report directly to acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs, who was recently criticized in an inspector general report for allowing the agency's science to be politicized. Jacobs was cited by the independent watchdog for his role in "Sharpiegate," when Trump displayed a map with a hand-drawn path during Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Jacobs was pressured by the White House to criticize the work of his own weather forecasters after they corrected Trump's false claims that Dorian was going to hit Alabama, the report said.
Neither Legates nor an NOAA spokesperson responded to requests for comment.
Legates has taken a dim view of the role the government plays in creating climate policy. He is a frequent guest at events sponsored by the Heartland Institute, which works to muddy public understanding of climate science.
In September 2019, Legates claimed that regulating carbon dioxide was actually a government control program designed to restrict the lives of ordinary Americans.
"Most governments want to keep control, and most governments get bigger and bigger over time," he said. "Carbon dioxide becomes that molecule by which we can take control of your lives, of your efforts, and everything that goes on."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. Copyright 2020. E&E provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/08/will-house-science-panel-need-ethical-review
Will House Science Panel Need an Ethical Review?
By Kelly ServickAug. 12, 2013 ,
Since U.S. House of Representatives science committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) subpoenaed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 1 August for data from decades-old air pollution studies, the agency has remained silent on how it will respond. But a vehement back-and-forth has filled that silence, as the panel’s top Democrat, Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), continues to spar with Smith over the move’s wisdom. Last week, the exchange included Johnson’s suggestion that the panel might need an independent oversight board to approve its use of sensitive data—and a letter from a researcher who claims Johnson defamed him during the fierce debate over the subpoena.
Smith argues that raw data from two seminal studies linking airborne soot to higher death rates—the so-called Harvard Six Cities Study and American Cancer Society research known as Cancer Prevention Study II—should be made public for reanalysis, because they underpin costly pollution regulations. But because this data contains personal health information about participants who were promised confidentiality, Johnson and fellow Democrats argue that the subpoena violates the participants’ trust.
Smith has repeatedly promised that committee staff members would handle any personal health information with care. But the wording of the subpoena, which gives EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy a 19 August deadline to present the data, has Democrats uneasy. It states that the information “may be produced in a de-identified form that removes personally identifiable information,” but also demands that these data be sufficient for independent replication of the original findings. Critics of the subpoena argue that it will be impossible for independent researchers to replicate the studies with de-identified data, meaning the committee will need to get the complete raw data, including sensitive personal information.
In a letter to Chairman Smith on 6 August, Johnson said the subpoena’s wording was evidence that the Republicans intend to go after data that is not fully de-identified. And that raises a new question, she wrote: Will the committee follow the same rules as federally funded research institutions entrusted with sensitive health information about human subjects? Will it, for example, establish an institutional review board (IRB) to oversee the process and ensure it meets ethical standards?
In his 8 August response, Smith reiterated that any personal health information in the subpoenaed documents would be removed before third parties saw the data, but did not respond to Johnson’s IRB question. Smith also asserts that de-identification is a simple process that should cause no delay in the EPA’s response.
Not everyone is so confident. Darrell West, director of the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation, notes that data collected from smaller communities, as in the Six Cities study, can be problematic, because it might be possible to reconstruct a participant’s identity even after names and addresses are removed. Others told ScienceInsider that the question of whether the science panel would need IRB approval for holding and handling any original data isn’t easy to answer, because Congress can—and often does—exempt itself from federal regulations.
There’s a chance that such issues could end up being hashed out in court, if EPA resists the subpoena. West, for one, believes that if the raw Six Cities data can’t be adequately de-identified, the committee has no legal right to request them.
Meanwhile, one of the researchers who says he was denied access to the American Cancer Society data has also become involved in the fray. At the1 August committee meeting to approve the subpoena, Smith named James Enstrom, formerly an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as an example of a legitimate scientist whose request for raw data had been unfairly turned down by the society.
Johnson, however, challenged Enstrom’s credentials in her 6 August letter. Enstrom, she wrote, was a longtime tobacco industry consultant who conducted industry-funded research questioning the negative health effects of secondhand smoke and was fired by UCLA in 2012.
Enstrom fired back with his own letter on 8 August, writing that he wanted “to fully refute the defamatory statements about me” and asking Johnson to “immediately withdraw” her comments. He is a past user of American Cancer Society data, he wrote, and has never been a consultant to the tobacco industry, although the industry has funded his research. He also noted that he is now involved in a wrongful termination suit against UCLA, which he claims fired him in retaliation for studies that found that fine soot particles did not cause “premature deaths” in California.